The story takes place around the 1880s in the Croatian town of Opatija [in the documents the Italian name for it is used: Abbazia].
The authorities uncovered the corpse of an old man who had been shunned by the villagers while he was alive and who was given a rather unusual burial.
His tongue had been pierced and his hands and feet had been nailed to the bottom of his coffin in order to prevent him for leaving his grave.
The culprits were found and punished on account of the desecration of the corpse, however the whole community took the side of the criminals: the old man had been a vampire and the measures had only been taken to prevent the vampire from attacking and killing the local children and young girls.

NOTE: The same report mentions that the villagers opened another grave a couple of weeks after the first and proceeded to a bizarre ritual: they tied the corpse to a wooden stake and, by adding some rocks to the strings, sank it in the sea.